


The Witching Hour

by muse_in_absentia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - No War, Birthday, Community: rs_games, Fluff, M/M, R/S Games 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-27 21:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8418043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muse_in_absentia/pseuds/muse_in_absentia
Summary: R/S Games 2016 - Day 23 - Team TimeSometimes birthday wishes can come true.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **Team:** Time  
>  **Title:** The Witching Hour  
>  **Rating:** PG  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Genres:** Magical AU, fluff  
>  **Word Count:** 3500  
>  **Summary:** Sometimes birthday wishes can come true.  
>  **Notes:** An everyone lives, no war AU. So much thanks to M and LW for all the help and cheerleading. This wouldn't have happened without you guys! I can't thank you enough.  
>  **Prompt:** #40 - Picture of a birthday cake with candles.  
> 

**November 2, 1989 – Nearing Midnight**

Remus was unhappy. He was smiling, laughing at the story Peter was telling from his job at the apothecary—something about a toad, a pile of Bertie Botts and a bottle of Happy Harpy Hair Tonic? Sirius wasn't quite sure. He had stopped listening about halfway through because Remus was unhappy. 

It was in the tension at the corner of his eyes, the slope of his shoulders as he leaned in to listen better, the way he ran his hand through his hair distractedly. He was tugging at the sleeves of his pale green jumper, a tic that Sirius had thought he had given up in fourth year. 

James flung himself across Sirius' lap, nearly spilling his wine everywhere and startling Sirius, who hadn't seen him coming. "Are you having fun, Padfoot?" 

A shrug and a noncommittal noise from Sirius had James frowning. "You're supposed to be having fun, mate, that's what birthdays are for." 

"What's wrong with Moony?" Sirius asked in lieu of a reply, the twinkling fairy lights making things look hazy and soft. 

When Sirius had first inherited Number 12, three years earlier when an Auror mission gone wrong had killed Regulus, he had been hesitant to keep it, had wanted to immediately sell it and all the memories it contained. However, he had been in desperate need of a place to stay after being kicked out of his flat for noise complaints, so, reluctantly, he had kept the old crypt. 

The house was his now, and he was slowly coming into owning it, with a lot of help from his friends. Sometimes it still surprised him, though, that he could think fondly of anything about it. 

"Aside from hearing that same story from Pete for the third time this week, I'd say nothing," James shrugged, frowning a little deeper and pushing his glasses back up his nose, breaking into Sirius' reverie. 

"He doesn't seem..." Sirius trailed off, hesitant to call Remus sad exactly, or upset. He seemed neither of those things. It was more as if he was echoing everyone else's enjoyment rather than experiencing his own. A local embodiment of the moon, caught in their orbit, reflecting the light they gave off, but not producing any himself. "…melancholy, to you?" Sirius finished, looking back towards Remus, who was looking back. Sirius smiled, but Remus turned quickly back to Pete. 

"Noooo." James drew the word out in the way only the truly drunk can manage without feeling ridiculous. 

Sirius was going to press the issue, he really was, but that was about the time Lily called from the kitchen,"It's almost midnight! Cake time, everyone!" 

The tradition of having cake at midnight had started in their third year at Hogwarts, the year they had learned how to sneak into the kitchens and nick food. It was James who had started it, for Remus' birthday, claiming the wishes made at the stroke of midnight had more potency. No one was sure if that was true, but no one had the heart to contradict him at the time, and a tradition was born. Sixteen years later, they still made sure they were up at midnight on the eve of anyone's birthday. With cake. Just in case. 

Sirius hauled James to his feet, nearly knocking them both over when he got tangled in the sleeve of James' robes, which were a size too big, despite being brand new. 

As they entered the dining room, Sirius passed James off to Lily, who dropped him into one of the seats, with a muttered "He's your problem," then sank into the chair next to Remus. Everyone settled in around the old mahogany table that, being too costly to replace, was by necessity one of the few things left from his childhood. Time for it to gain a few good memories. 

"Everyone" was just the five of them. James had promised a real party on Saturday with all of their friends and family, for those that still had family, but this tradition was for them. 

With a flick of her wand, Lily summoned a small cake from the kitchen—German chocolate with plain white icing because Sirius hated coconut. 

"Two minutes," Remus murmured, clapping Sirius in the shoulder in a way that felt hollow.

"What are you going to wish for?" Pete asked, grinning.

Sirius, Remus and Lily all groaned as James launched into his tirade about how you couldn't tell or the wishes lost their magic, too drunk to tell Pete had been taking the piss. This was part of the tradition at this point, and their squabbling carried the room until the old grandfather clock in the hallway started to chime.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Lily lit the candles with her wand.

Five.

Six.

Sirius drew a breath.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Remus slid the cake directly in front of Sirius.

Ten.

Eleven.

Four sets of eyes were watching.

Twelve.

 _I wish I knew how to make Remus happy._ It wasn't the wish he had planned to make.

Thirteen.

The little flames on thirty candles were stilled horizontally, halfway between dancing and guttering out.

"What the bloody buggering..." Sirius trailed off when he saw that no one else was moving, stilled like the candles. _"Fuck!"_ he screamed, the sound echoing as if in a much larger space. As if in all the space. The reverberation came back and made his head pulse, and he squeezed his eyes shut till the sensation passed.

Gingerly he reached over and ran his fingers across the fringe of Remus' hair. It shifted with his touch, but stayed where it was when his hand left, not falling back across Remus' forehead. Remus didn't move.

Peter's arm was halfway up to swatting at where James had poked his ribs, and Sirius inanely thought his arm would get tired held aloft indefinitely. He got up and walked around James' seat to reposition Peter into a more comfortable position. Briefly he considered also sitting Lily down from where she was still standing, waiting to cut the cake, but the way he would have to manhandle her felt inappropriate. He left her standing.

A deep breath. Another. His heartbeat was loud in his ears.

"Is this what you wanted, Moony? Did you finally cotton on to the part where I've loved you for years, and you couldn't deal with me anymore? You could have said, you know. I would have. I don't know, honestly. But I would have done something. You should have said I was making you uncomfortable."

Remus didn't move, didn't respond, didn't breathe.

"Hardly." A drawling voice filtered in through the vacuum of a frozen moment, just out of sight, in the direction of the grandfather clock. A very familiar drawling voice.

The sight of his little brother made Sirius catch his breath. An ache he didn't know he had been feeling for the last three years, since Regulus had died, blossomed behind his breastbone.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Regulus, or, you know, smack me if I'm being insensitive, but aren't you dead?"

"Most of the time." Regulus shrugged, nonplussed, leaning against the wall beside the portrait of their mother that Sirius hadn't been able to charm off the wall yet.

"Most of the— You know what, never mind. I doubt I'd understand it if you did explain it to me."

"You're getting smarter in your old age, big brother."

Sirius was caught between the urge to hex Regulus out of habit, or pull him into a hug and never let go. He wasn't sure which would go more wrong.

With a long suffering sigh and a roll of his eyes Regulus levered himself off the wall and opened his arms. "It's fine," he muttered.

Regulus was solid and warm and breathing and Sirius felt his eyes prickle. He covered it up by burying his face in Regulus' neck for a moment then stepping away abruptly. Regulus smirked at him.

"I won't ask how you read my mind, but I will ask what brings you to this... where are we, anyway?"

The chuckle that Regulus let out sounded like it came from all directions at once, all frequencies at once, and Sirius winced. "We are where we have always been, in the breath between one second and the next. The witching hour."

Fingers ran through hair, shaking slightly as Sirius glanced back at his friends who were frozen between heartbeats.

"They won't notice anything amiss," Regulus added, voice quieter than it had been a moment overlapping, earlier, later.

"All right," Sirius hedged, stepping away from the fairy lights and candles and into the dim hallway. "So, what are we doing—now, I guess?"

"Granting your wish," Regulus replied, looking a bit smug. "Or, rather, giving you the possibility of granting it for yourself, if you're clever enough."

"I always did like a challenge. What do I need to do?"

Regulus held out a single birthday candle. "Take this."

Wax hit Sirius' hand, cool and soft, and then he felt the familiar tug of a portkey.

**March 10, 1974 – Almost Midnight**

There were four almost teenage boys perched on a four-poster, huddled behind scarlet curtains. From somewhere behind a heavy door set in a stone wall, a clock chimed midnight.

Sirius remembered that night, the chocolate cake they had smuggled up for Remus without telling him, wanting to surprise him. The way none of them had slept and James had fallen asleep standing in potions the next day, exploding his cauldron all over the entire room. Most importantly, he remembered the way they had all been jumbled together, one mass of boys, sharing in a moment that would continue the rest of their lives.

"Make a wish, Moony!" James cried, exuberant in the way of all teenagers who think that they're the first to have an idea.

Teenaged Remus closed his eyes and blew out the candles, and this time, Sirius watched it. Teenaged Sirius had been caught up in the excitement on James' face. Adult Sirius now didn't miss the way Remus glanced at him sidelong as the last of the candles sputtered out.

"What did you wish for, Moony?" Peter asked innocently, completely unaware that he would be destined to ask that question three times a year for the next sixteen years and counting. (Four times once Lily joined them.)

The tug of the the portkey pulling him back settled into the pit of Sirius' stomach just as Remus was turning to Peter to answer.

**November 2-3, 1989 – Midnight**

The room faded and Sirius was back staring at Regulus. "Fourth dimensional portkey?" he asked rather than ask what had just happened. He knew enough to realize that he was being given a chance to see his memory from a new angle, with the wisdom of coming at it from the direction of hindsight in the moment. It was jarring.

By way of reply Regulus handed him a bar of Honeyduke. This time he was ready for the tug as Number Twelve faded away again.

**October 7, 1975 – Morning**

"So, Padfoot, how was your date last night?" James flung himself across Sirius' bed, landing with a thud and barely missing Sirius' feet.

"Did you snog her?" Peter added quickly from where he was still curled up in his own bed, looking over with interest. 

Remus was curled up in the bed beside Sirius', still rumpled, rubbing at his eyes. "Wha?" he mumbled, frowning and trying to flatten his hair in a distinctly James-like way, still leaning back on one elbow on his pillow.

"We're trying to find out if Padfoot's date was a good kisser," James laughed, swatting at the knee that came up trying to hit his ribs in retaliation.

"Or better yet, if she thought _he_ was a good kisser."

Sirius grabbed for his wand, flicking it and making a pillow hit Peter in the face. While he was spluttering Sirius took a deep breath and let it out very slowly, staring as close as he could to James' face without making eye contact. 

Adult Sirius was sort of impressed with his teenaged counterpart. He didn't look nearly as nervous as he remembered being. There wasn't an ounce of terror on his face.

"I suppose you could ask him, but I doubt Gideon is up yet." 

There was silence for a minute while everyone processed what had just happened and then James flung himself on Sirius with a cry of, "It's about time you told us!"

Sirius shared a moment of relief with his younger counterpart, remembering how freeing it was to have James react the way he had. Just enough flippancy to make sure Sirius knew he wasn't going to go all mushy on him in a way that teenage Sirius wouldn't have been able to handle, but he hid squeezing the breath out of Sirius in understanding under tackling him to the bed.

This time, however, he wasn't buried under James and could see the way Peter had glanced at James to make sure this was okay before relaxing into a cautious smile. 

He could also see how Remus watched the whole thing from his bed, his face flickering between hurt and hope. Then, so fast that Sirius almost missed it, even as carefully as he was looking, the play of emotions was walled off behind a forced smile, the edges of Remus' mouth tight and pinched, his eyes flat.

The chance of deciphering what that look had meant melted away with the room.

**November 2-3, 1989 – Midnight**

Shaking hands were still clutching melting chocolate, sticky between his fingers. A quick cleansing charm fixed the mess, but not the pounding in his chest. "Okay, Reg, as nice as it was to have the confirmation that my friends love me despite being a raging poof, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be getting here."

Regulus sighed and shook his head. "You always were a bit thick. Here, try this one. And try and make good use of it, I've only got a few of these left."

It was a quill this time, one of the ostentatious peacock feather ones that James fancied towards the end of their time at Hogwarts. Sirius was braced for the pull at his midsection before he held out his hand.

**February 22, 1978 – Early Evening**

The common room was oddly quiet for barely an hour past dinner. It was too cold outside for much more than the shortest of walks, even with the liberal use of warming charms. Despite that, though, the only people in the common room were a couple of second-year girls giggling over a muggle magazine in front of the fire, and Sirius, rushing to finish a Transfiguration essay that he was supposed to have completed the night before.

Adult Sirius remembered that night vividly. He nearly shouted a warning to the version of himself sitting on one of the couches, oblivious to everything around him as James snuck down the dormitory stairs, wand in hand. However, when he sucked in a breath and tried to call out nothing happened, no sound, no release of air. Curious, he stepped in front of the stairs and shuddered when James tumbled right through him, paying him less mind than he would have even one of the castle ghosts.

Then there was an almost simultaneous burst of orange light and cackle out of James. Ink went everywhere, and Sirius remembered mourning the loss of his essay. He'd only had two more inches to write, too. But then sparks were flying, and hexes zipping around the common room. The two second-years fled quickly as the mock duel spiraled out of control.

As adult Sirius watched, he realized what a fickle thing the memory of a cocky teenager was. He clearly remembered defeating James in spectacular fashion. However, when Remus came down the stairs, looking around the common room, brow furrowed and eyes pinched, James had Sirius in a headlock and was proceeding to turn his skin green.

"Sirius?" Remus' voice was so hesitant, adult Sirius wanted to hug him. Remus was watching the struggling pair as if he wasn't sure he should interrupt, as if he wasn't sure of his welcome.

"Just a minute, Moony. Let me finish beating James here for ruining my essay."

The urge to smack his younger self was strong, as the teenager didn't even look up at his friend, having only enough attention for the duel at hand.

When James had finally finished torturing Sirius and had let him up, now sporting not only green skin but pink hair and orange warts all over his face as well, they were alone. Remus had slipped out the portrait hole without either of them noticing. Sirius remembered he never came back that night, and he never found out what it was Remus had wanted. He also remembered, with all the clarity of hindsight, that he hadn't even thought to ask what Remus had wanted. James had been too much of a distraction. Often. Now he was wondering how much he had unintentionally distanced his other friends by always seeking out James.

**November 2-3, 1989 – Midnight**

Sirius didn't realize he was crying until Regulus handed him a handkerchief, trying to look solemn, but losing it somewhere behind a smirk.

"I was a right git," Sirius muttered, half hoping Regulus wouldn't hear him, while the other half hoped he would agree. "Is that what I'm supposed to pull from all of this? That I've been a terrible friend? Well, to anyone that wasn't James, at any rate."

Regulus cuffed him on the side of the head. "I don't think Remus sees it that way, big brother. I didn't, no matter how I acted most of the time."

"Well, of course you didn't. You're family. You're as nutters as I am."

"Remus is family, too, even if he doesn't share our arguably tainted bloodlines. You usually know that. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself."

Instead of answering, Sirius turned around, back towards the glow of the party that wasn't happening. Towards the pull of Remus, still sitting in the seat beside where Sirius had been. He wished he could breathe life into Remus, let him share in this frozen moment. Keep it between them, warm and full of potential until it finally burst out the other side and time started its inexorable march again.

"Tell him that," Regulus huffed, shaking his head as if Sirius was a small child. Although, with the way time was currently working, maybe he was, in a way. Maybe he was all ages. Or none. Thinking too hard on it made his head hurt.

"I miss you, you know," Sirius said, unsure of the welcome in his words, but needing to let them out before he choked on them.

Regulus sighed again, but he looked fond. "I know." He didn't offer any platitudes, any false comfort. Sirius was glad. This felt more real. "Now go on, get out of here. You shouldn't spend your birthday with the dead, even for family."

"I'm not," Sirius grinned, backing up into the doorway, watching as Regulus grew slightly hazy. "Just one moment of it."

He backed all the way to his seat, only stopping when his knees bumped against it, sitting heavily between Remus and James, still watching until Regulus faded entirely from sight.

**November 3, 1989 – 12:01AM**

"You going to pass that cake over to Lily to cut, or are you just going to keep staring into the hallway, Pads?" James asked, crashing against his shoulder and calling Sirius' attention back to the room and his friends.

Shaking his head Sirius slid the cake down the table to Lily's waiting knife.

"You okay, Sirius?" Remus asked softly, leaning in under the guise of swatting James in the back of the head.

Sirius thought about telling Remus what had happened. Of just saying yes and letting the party continue until they all passed out. Of letting this moment slip by.

Instead he smiled at Remus, noting the way his soft brown eyes got infinitesimally wider. "I may always turn to James for my loudest moments, the things that explode, the sharp points of action. But I want to share all the in between moments with you. The stillness, the waiting moments, the ones that have the potential to be anything. Share my moments with me?"

James and Peter were arguing loudly over the cake, although Peter snuck a glance at Remus and Sirius, and Sirius promised himself he would thank Peter later for the distraction.

"Sirius," Remus breathed, watching him for a heartbeat. Then another. Finally his entire face transformed, eyes wide, smile breaking across his face like the chime of the clock, sudden and bright.

The waiting seemed to feel like forever, like an instant, and then Sirius felt fingers tangle with his own beneath the table.


End file.
